


and sometimes when it's too hard to get on, it just might be you that I'll call upon

by oneworldaway



Category: Bones (TV)
Genre: Christmas, F/F, Fluff, New Year's Eve, New Year's Kiss, takes place during and after episode s01e09 The Man in the Fallout Shelter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-26 22:48:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21996718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oneworldaway/pseuds/oneworldaway
Summary: Brennan's never been to a slumber party. Angela decides to fix that.
Relationships: Past Angela/Roxie, Temperance Brennan/Angela Montenegro
Comments: 14
Kudos: 100





	and sometimes when it's too hard to get on, it just might be you that I'll call upon

**Author's Note:**

> I was years late to Bones and fell head over heels for these two last year, so here we are! 
> 
> If you need a quick refresher on the episode that inspired this, The Man in the Fallout Shelter, it's the season 1 Christmas episode where they get quarantined inside the Jeffersonian over Christmas and Brennan tracks down the woman who'd been in a relationship with the man whose remains she's examining. There are some really lovely Brennan/Angela moments in this episode.
> 
> The title comes from the song "New Year's Eve" by First Aid Kit.

They’re rolling out their CDC-provided sleeping bags on the floor of the Jeffersonian, trying not to think about the fact that they’ve been quarantined due to exposure to a deadly virus, when Angela learns that Brennan’s never been to a sleepover before.

“ _Never?_ ”

“Well, I have stayed over at men’s houses after engaging in—“

“No, sweetie,” Angela interrupts, laughing softly. “I know that. But you never went to any slumber parties when you were a kid? Or just spent the night at a friend’s house?”

“I didn’t really have friends like that,” says Brennan, and Angela almost flinches. Sometimes she forgets the bits and pieces Brennan’s shared about her life before they met, how lonely it sounds like she was growing up. She’s feeling bad for bringing it up at all when Brennan continues, “I don’t imagine it’d be very different from this, though.”

“Okay, the sleeping bags and the late night conversation might be the same, but a sleepover is supposed to be for _fun_. Not because you’ve been quarantined,” says Angela. “You know, you watch movies, do face masks, eat too much junk food...tell each other secrets.”

“I could tell you a secret now,” Brennan offers. It hits Angela, then, how much Brennan trusts her, and she can’t hide the way that makes her smile.

“I appreciate the gesture,” she says sincerely, “but we need to have a _real_ slumber party. When we _aren’t_ being held prisoner by order of the CDC.” She bites her lip in thought. “Assuming we’re still alive by then, what are you doing for New Year’s?”

“I thought you were going to invite me out dancing again, like last year,” says Brennan.

Angela smiles at the memory of that night. “Fun as that was, I think this year I’ve got an even better idea.”

~

She hates that she upset Brennan without meaning to, can’t stand to watch her shut herself down as she throws herself into this decades-old case. But Brennan is a force to be reckoned with, and if anyone can solve this mystery, it’s her.

Angela makes up for it by being there when Brennan’s ready to talk, and she’s touched all over again by how open Brennan is with her sometimes, in a way she’s never seen her open up to anyone else.

Brennan finds Ivy Gillespie, because of course she does. It’s Christmas morning, and Angela’s neck aches from how she fell asleep on the couch in Brennan’s office while she worked, but she finds there’s nowhere else she’d rather be.

“You should get some rest, sweetie,” says Angela, moving over on the couch and patting the spot next to her. She cuts Brennan off before she can protest. “No arguments! Sit.” Brennan laughs softly in defeat as she joins Angela, agreeably leaning on Angela’s shoulder and allowing an arm to be wrapped around her shoulders. Angela sighs happily, feeling her own eyes slip closed once more.

“Technically, you slept over in my office,” says Brennan, as she nestles more closely into Angela’s side—impossibly cute and fond, almost too much for Angela to bear. “We can say we’ve had a sleepover now.”

Angela shakes her head. “This is not a sleepover, sweetie. You just wait until New Year’s.”

~

Some of Angela’s slumber party plans go over better than others. Brennan insists they order a thin crust, veggie pizza from her favourite Italian place, but Angela stocks up on more basic snacks before Brennan comes over, anyway, and even Brennan eventually winds up eating her fair share of Cheetos . They have difficulty settling on movies, but find a solid compromise in alternating between Angela’s list of romantic comedies and some of the more interesting documentaries Brennan points out on pay per view. And Angela finds that talking about boys is far more exciting at a grown up slumber party, where both parties present have actually had some experience in that department.

It’s a little after nine when Angela announces, as the credits roll on _While You Were Sleeping_ , that they’re both overdue for a little pampering. But Brennan doesn’t see the fun in putting cucumber slices over their eyes while they do facials, she doesn’t wear nail polish, and she doesn’t share Angela’s enthusiasm to practice their makeup techniques when they aren’t even going anywhere.

“Art doesn’t need to have a purpose, Bren,” Angela reminds her. “The important thing is that you make it.”

“You’re not a makeup artist,” says Brennan, and Angela rolls her eyes, but she means no real harm. It’s not Brennan’s fault that she didn’t grow up doing these things. “But,” Brennan says after a moment of thought, “I suppose I have been thinking about trying something new with my hair.”

Angela feels herself light up like a Christmas tree. “Here,” she says, gently maneuvering Brennan to sit on the carpet in front of the couch, where Angela positions herself behind her. “I used to be really good at French braiding. Roxie taught me how.”

She told Brennan about Roxie not long after they first met, before she even started working at the Jeffersonian. It didn’t seem like something she needed to hide from her, and what’s more, she found she didn’t want to. It was the right call: Brennan didn’t seem surprised, but she hadn’t guessed at it, either. She was pragmatic about sexuality the way she was about everything else, so it didn’t seem to faze her, and Angela was relieved. And it was something Brennan would never share with someone else without Angela’s consent, both because it was fairly unremarkable to her, and because she seemed to sense, early on, that Angela trusted her, and felt no desire to betray that trust.

With strands of Brennan’s hair between her fingertips, as she braids a section back from Brennan’s face, a memory flashes across her mind’s eye that she hasn’t thought of in years.

It was the first time she ever spent the night at Roxie’s apartment. It was a tiny place that Roxie shared with two other students from their college, but the others had both gone home for Thanksgiving weekend, while Roxie and Angela both stayed in town. They weren’t dating, yet, but it was looking more and more like they were moving in that direction. It scared Angela, a little, but excited her, too. She’d felt this way about girls before, but she’d never had the chance to act on those feelings.

So when she complimented the way Roxie would braid her hair sometimes, and Roxie offered to show her how she did it, Angela had to steady herself as Roxie sat her down in front of the mirror over her dresser, hoping it wasn’t obvious how nervous she felt. It thrilled her to feel Roxie’s hands in her hair, one of them lingering just a moment longer than seemed entirely necessary as she combed it off of Angela’s face with her fingers. With boys, Angela was good at keeping her cool. She couldn’t account for how flushed she felt now, or how it felt like her limbs might turn to jelly.

“I didn’t think you noticed how I did my hair,” said Roxie, interrupting the gooey thoughts racing through Angela’s brain.

“Why wouldn’t I?” asked Angela. Roxie was always doing new and inventive things with her style, from the way she did her hair to the funky clothes she’d find at thrift stores and mix and match like no one else in their classes. Everyone was always admiring her look.

“Because you look perfect every day without even having to try,” said Roxie simply, and Angela’s breath hitched, though she tried to laugh it off.

“Oh, I try,” she commented. “You’ve seen how overboard I go with the makeup some days.”

“But the point is you don’t _have_ to,” said Roxie. “You look amazing even when you don’t do anything. I mean, you’re...you’re beautiful.”

Angela was suddenly aware that Roxie’s hands, so steady a minute earlier, were shaking now, too. She hadn’t fastened the braid, yet, but Angela didn’t care anymore. She turned to face Roxie, her hair slipping out of Roxie’s hands, and it didn’t look like she minded, either.

“Well, I _do_ notice you,” said Angela. “Every day. Sometimes every minute.”

“That’s a lot,” said Roxie, her usual smirk slowly spreading across her face.

Angela was growing more confident, too. Her movements more fluid than she’d have thought possible moments before, she reached behind Roxie’s head to pull out the elastic that was holding her hair in a ponytail. Then she combed her fingers through it, fluffing it out.

“Here,” Angela breathed. “Let me try.”

Her hands still tangled up in Roxie’s hair, she finally leaned in to kiss her.

~

It’s silent after the movie finishes playing, the TV back on the pay per view menu. All Angela hears is the sound of Brennan breathing, the way she sucks in a quick breath when Angela accidentally pulls a bit too hard.

“Sorry,” she says with a grimace. “Guess I’m out of practice.”

“It’s okay,” says Brennan. “I have an excellent level of tolerance for physical pain. And truth be told, having my hair pulled isn’t always wholly unpleasant.”

The rush of both nervous energy and playful curiosity that Angela feels isn’t entirely new, and if she’s being honest with herself, not entirely unexpected. But she’s better at playing it cool, these days. Brennan is always open about her sexuality, anyway, so it’s not even the first time she’s talked to Angela like this. “So that’s what you’re into,” she says with a smirk. “Noted,” she adds mischievously.

The air feels hotter between them, and Angela’s beginning to wonder if that breath Brennan took wasn’t entirely out of pain. She can feel more than see that Brennan is smirking, too. “When employed correctly and consensually,” says Brennan, “small amounts of pain can be...incredibly erotic.”

Still, Angela’s careful as she finishes the braid, pulling out the bobby pin she used to keep her hair off her face when she did her mud mask and securing it in Brennan’s hair. “Done,” she says simply, pretty sure Brennan isn’t looking for any other response.

They settle on a documentary about ocean life next, and Angela’s just gotten her pillows comfortably fluffed and flopped back onto them when Brennan asks, “Could you keep playing with my hair? I find it…reassuring.”

Angela can’t help but oblige her.

~

Closer to midnight, they switch to one of the New Year’s Eve programs on TV. Angela’s grown so used to going out for New Year’s that it’s been years since she’s watched the ball drop, and it’s sort of nice to stay in and watch it again.

People in the crowd on TV are kissing as midnight strikes, and once they’ve clinked glasses filled with the champagne Angela bought for the occasion, they sit and sip in silence for some time.

“It’s customary to kiss someone at midnight on New Year’s Eve,” Brennan finally says, more of a statement than a question.

Angela takes a breath as she figures out what to say. “If you’re with someone important to you,” she responds carefully.

“You’re important to me,” says Brennan, and Angela tries to tell herself it’s just the champagne making her head feel all fuzzy.

“You didn’t kiss me under the mistletoe at Christmas,” Angela points out, trying not to sound disappointed. “That’s customary, too.”

“I wasn’t sure you really wanted me to,” says Brennan, blinking up at Angela seriously.

Something clicks in Angela’s head. She brought up kissing Brennan at Christmas, “in a festive, non-lesbian manner,” and wondered if she was imagining Brennan’s slight grimace. Even as she said it, she knew she was overcompensating, trying too hard to make it all sound casual, but she didn’t want to scare Brennan off.

They’ve kissed each other before, a few times, usually after a long night of drinking and dancing. It was last New Year’s Eve, in fact, when it happened for the first time, when everyone around them at the club was doing it at midnight and it just felt right to follow suit. There was never any sort of sexual charge to it before; Angela just likes to kiss the people she loves, and when the alcohol has emboldened her enough to ask Brennan to indulge her in a quick show of affection, Brennan’s response has always been entirely positive. So her quip about the mistletoe wasn’t entirely out of left field, except that it was the first time she’s added any sort of qualifier—and it was the first time Brennan’s responded this way.

As Brennan looks up at her now, her expression utterly unguarded, Angela understands her mistake.

“Well, I did,” she tells her, truthfully. “I do.”

Midnight’s come and gone by now, rendering this all moot, except New Year’s Eve customs were never really the point. The sleepover, this, it’s all because Angela likes spending time with Brennan, likes being close to her.

She slides off the couch to sit down next to her, brushing a few stray hairs out of Brennan’s face. “Happy New Year, sweetie,” she breathes, and then Brennan is kissing her and it’s the only thing that matters.


End file.
